The ones who stand to lose the most in this confrontation are the Powers That Be -- it is their properties that will be consumed in nuclear fire and their stocks which will go in the toilet in the event of the misuse of nuclear weapons. These people are simply not going to stand idly by while these nutjobs join the nuclear club. I'm not happy with the current scenario, but I'm not particularly concerned.

I'm generally optimistic--but not about Europe acting, or helping, to halt Iran's now-restarted nuclear program or more broadly to defend its way of life.

Assuming Europe engages, who has the better cards? Well, when Reagan and Thatcher won the Cold-War, Europe downsized defense, so that "America's defense budget dwarfs the next ten countries, combined." True, England and France still have nukes. But, according to Mark Steyn, Europe's cupboard otherwise is bare:

the U.S. military presence, the American security guarantee . . . liberated European budgets: instead of having to spend money on guns, they could concentrate on butter, and buttering up the voters. . . The "free world," as the Americans called it, was a free ride for everyone else. And having been absolved from the primal responsibilities of nationhood, it's hardly surprising that European nations have little wish to reshoulder them. In essence, the lavish levels of public health care on the Continent are subsidized by the American taxpayer. And this long-term softening of large sections of the West makes them ill-suited to resisting a primal force like Islam.

What about Iran? The nukes advantage Iran, given the risk of deterrence through mutually assured destruction. Moreover, Iran's upgraded some familiar weapons. Mortars have been re-branded in convenient vest form, emphasizing human, rather than remote, targeting. Grenades have been miniaturized and merged with cell phones. No need for a throw; instead, Islamic grenades are "planted" and cultivated in road-side beds--which also enables real-time Al Jazeera coverage. And, just like the Axis in the last European war, Iran deploys "weaponized law" to rationalize and accelerate Judenfrei and gay/civil-liberties/Christian/frei. Both the concealed explosives and Shari`ah statutes are optimized for regime-change--in this case, targeting the civilization formerly known as Western, European and Judeo-Christian.

Worse yet, Europe's handicapped by a weak tripwire--meaning war could go to end-game before anyone noticed. Distracted by their desire to shrink the rejected EU Constitution below phone-book bulk, the kumbayha cult might miss the first act. After all, the continent's had 135 years to learn war drums come from the East, and a half century to confuse the Western ocean's roar with airborne attack. So conditioned, an incremental and internal invasion could succeed by stealth, heralded, as Mark Steyn observed in the December 31st National Review, only by in-country cries: "For EU politicians, as those French and German poll numbers indicate, there’s not a lot of good options when half the babies in your maternity wards are Muslim." Adding to the confusion, Iran's lead role prunes parts previously played by covetous Germans, with the remainder potentially invisible to those still using blue-eyed, blond-haired "know your enemy" flashcards. So even absent long-range ICBMs, Iran or other radical Islamics could sneak attack from within.

The best hope for a timely warning is the impending Semicentennial breach of Belgian neutrality. True, the eyes of Brussels are fixed on Berlin and Washington. But when jihad plays Belgium, the likely first strike -- one prong terrorist bombs, another holy books -- targets a well-known but unguarded objective. So the initial attack's almost certain to succeed--loudly and publicly, alerting even the most insular.

Whatever the subtle success of Radical Islam, the preservation of Western Civilization may come to this: when Iran hits Brussels, even the EU will wake from its post-WWII nap, join the right side, and avenge the day when Koran and Kalashnikov combined to annihilate Manneken Pis.

11 comments:

My own take never presumed Europe would be involved. As usual, we are going to have to save their bacon from the The Butchers of Islam... (LOL -- absurdist imagery intentional)

My presumption is that either the USA or Israel will act, possibly in concert. I suspect they are waiting until the last minute simply because, in the interrim, all manner of things might be in the works which could come to the fray...

a) Iran could have a revolution. I'm willing to bet we are doing everything possible to foment this. I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened.b) China could step in and decide that if the dumb foreign devils won't stop it, they will (China DOES, apparently, have its share of problems with Muslim fanats, they just don't admit to it very much)... and I don't think they really like the idea of nuclear Islam any more than we do.c) There may be some agreements brewing to eliminate the nuclear threats to all and sundry by mutual action by China AND the US.

I consider these Chinese options to be less likely, as I suspect they are hoping we'll exhaust each other (i.e., Islam vs. the West) which will allow them to take over (a very Chinese tactic), but I am not sure how much of a problem they are having with MusFans, so perhaps they may be more eager to "fix" this than is visible. Certainly the fact of the currently unknown whereabouts of The Little Troll are, ummmmm, "interesting" in this light.

I do think we are trying to avoid overt action, here -- as is Israel, since a first-strike action is certainly considered exceedingly gauche in international politics (although no one ever really complained about the Arabs doing it to Israel -- after all, "They're only bloody wogs -- why would you expect them to behave like civilized peoples?")... and, no matter how sensible it may be to do it, there is less direct justification in international law for either the USA or Israel to attack Iran without a real, honest provoking event.

I'm not saying we won't, but, until they're really, really on-line with the production, there is still no threat, so we're going to hold off and see what happens.

One would think these idiots would have long since learned the flaw inherent in Chamberlainism -- but no, these are all liberal twits -- they aren't capable of actually learning... Apparently the ones who were smart enough to learn all left there and came to the USA in preceding centuries...

> In essence, the lavish levels of public health care on the Continent are subsidized by the American taxpayer

This is, in many ways, true... and the relevance of that to the whine about how the USA gets such a large share of "the world's resources" is worth noting. We do, admittedly, get more than our population's proportion of those resources, but, in return, we are also massively more productive than those others.

The US economy produces more than all seven of the other "big eight" nations, and more than all the others put together, as well (i.e. we come close, despite having only 1/20th the worlds population, to producing more than the other 19/20ths put together).

We may be getting a lion's share, but that lion's roar is more than just noise.

When they whine about our getting 1/4th to 1/3rd of the resources, that fact of our choice to continue to devote some portion of our production to mutual defense of all is just another justification to add to that fact. If they want us to foot that bill, they better be willing to accept that we expect something like that in return.

"Other international agencies, donor governments and nongovernmental organizations also played a critical role, but it was the United Nations that took the lead, pushing a range of conflict-prevention and peace-building initiatives on a scale never before attempted.

"The number of U.N. peacekeeping operations and missions to prevent and stop wars have increased by more than 400 percent since the end of the Cold War. As this upsurge of international activism grew in scope and intensity through the 1990s, the number of crises, wars and genocides declined."

No sale. Oh, I agree, the world is growing more peaceful. But that's because America acts, when possible, as the sole global adult. We promote free markets, the only know ladder out of poverty. America spent lives and treasure to win the cold war--no charge. Our Navy protects freedom of the seas--no charge. The stats cited by the Post admit defeating the USSR was a condition precedent and, in any event, address the quantity, not quality, of peace keeping.

The UN's reputation for quality will never win a JD Powers award. At best, the organization's a bloated bureaucracy, whose senior staff is excused from taxes both at home and in the United States. Most UN members are dictatorships. Many ambassadors are thugs with slush-funds and seats on the Human Rights Commission, allowing annual "Through the Looking Glass" moralizing about America's death penalty by terrorists and murders.

Just out of curiosity, where in the hell did that come from? Do you honestly believe what you wrote? Do you expect your readership to believe it? Can you cite something shy of a John Birch Society Mailer to establish the point?

If the statement was not really true, is there a way for your readers to reliably distinguish the true stuff you write from the lies you write?

> If the statement was not really true, is there a way for your readers to reliably distinguish the true stuff you write from the lies you write?

Yeah, there's this newfangled thing called The Internet...

You might try learning how to actually use it some time... I realize this is something called "work" but it does offer substantial rewards. Sometimes you actually find out things you didn't know, and even find out things that haven't been FED to you by some demagogue or charlatan seeking to aim you like an idiot suicide bomber. Try it. Of course, the downside is that you can't continue to be just an idiot sheep any more, you tend to actually ask more questions and think for yourself.

In my experience, while some of Carl's comments may have a disputable subjective component to them, that part is usually pretty obvious. The rest of what he writes is fairly reliably true within the limits of epistemology.

If you doubt something, or even want the information so that YOU can provide it when someone else asks YOU about it, you can politely ask (intead of the rather obnoxious way you did) and he'll usually endeavor to provide you with his sources.

"How bad is the still expanding scandal in the United Nations' multi-billion-dollar procurement division? Based on a still-secret internal investigation, the answer is: for the U.N., it is just as bad as the gigantic Oil-for-Food debacle — or maybe worse.

The focus of the current scandal is U.N. peacekeeping, a function that consumes 85 percent of the U.N.'s procurement budget — a cost that could reach $2 billion in 2005. Like many of the U.N.'s financial dealings, it is shrouded in secrecy. And like the multi-billion-dollar Oil-for-Food scandal, it is wrapped in what the U.N.'s own investigators now call "systematic abuse," "a pattern of corrupt practices," and "a culture of impunity."

In all, U.N. investigators have charged that nearly one-third of the $1 billion in major U.N. procurement contracts that they examined involved waste, corruption or other irregularities — $298 million in all. And that total covered slightly less than one-third of the $3.2 billion in major supply contracts that the U.N. has signed in the past five years.